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| Explaining to the group of visitors at Hung King Temple (Can Tho city) |
According to many tourists, when coming to the Southwest region, one can easily feel the closeness, friendliness and enthusiasm of the people working in tourism here. This partly creates sympathy for tourists.
Not commensurate with potential
At many tourist destinations, many tour guides lack the necessary professionalism; the tourism workforce is mainly "home-grown". That is, the owners hire their brothers, relatives, and acquaintances to serve as managers, tour guides, interpreters, chefs, etc.Most of these people have not been trained or have only been trained through a few unprofessional training courses, so they lack many skills.
Ms. Phuong Nga, manager of an eco-tourism area in Tra On district, Vinh Long province, said: Her family developed the eco-tourism area from the family's fruit garden. The staff mainly recruited family members and were not properly trained. Therefore, if they wanted to expand the scale and increase promotion, it would be difficult, because no one had experience in connecting tours, routes, or doing marketing.
In many tourist areas and local attractions, there are many tour guides and interpreters whose main job is to repeat the same introductions over and over again, lacking creativity. Many of them are also not trained to become professional tourism workers.
Mr. Tuan Dat, a tour guide at a relic site in Kien Giang province, shared: We are mainly selected from local cultural officials, who have knowledge of history and geography, but are not formally trained in tourism. Besides, our income is only enough to live on because of our low salary, so it is difficult to invest in studying and improving our qualifications and skills.
According to the reporter's research, many tourism and travel companies are currently facing challenges in recruiting and training high-quality tourism human resources. Managers and tour guides fluent in foreign languages are still scarce. Tourism training facilities in the Mekong Delta have made significant progress in providing human resources.
However, there is still a need for improvement in the quality of training. In addition, competition to attract talent among tourism businesses nationwide is increasingly fierce. The "brain drain" to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, etc. is taking place.
According to Ms. Le Dinh Minh Thy, Director of Vietravel Tourism Company, Can Tho branch, although Vietravel has organized many internal training programs, ensuring consistent quality among branches nationwide is still a challenge. The rapid pace of change in the tourism industry requires human resources to constantly update their technological skills and meet new market requirements.
Some experts say that, currently, in the Mekong Delta, although there are many educational institutions opening tourism training majors, there is still a lack of effective connection between localities and training institutions in the region and with other cities. The tourism human resources have not yet met the development needs of the industry.
Many workers have not been trained in tourism, soft skills, foreign languages and information technology are still weak. Tourism training schools in the region only meet about 50% to 60% of the demand. Graduates mainly grasp theory, lack specialized skills and situation handling...
Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research, pointed out the weaknesses: The Mekong Delta tourism workforce currently has about 150,000 people. Of these, 51% have not been trained, only 8% have university and postgraduate degrees, mainly distributed in Ben Tre, Can Tho, Tien Giang, Kien Giang and An Giang.
Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Tra Vinh Province Nguyen Quynh Thien said: Currently, the province has two tourism human resource training facilities belonging to Tra Vinh University and Tra Vinh Vocational College, annually training about 30 students majoring in tourism, restaurant and hotel management. The province has cooperated and trained nearly 1,200 students on knowledge and skills of tourism start-up, tourism profession, and practice of explaining at the point...
However, the current human resources situation has not kept up with the development conditions of the industry. Most of them are unskilled workers, family workers, have not been trained in tourism, many do not know foreign languages or have only been trained in short-term vocational courses, have low skills, etc.
According to Master Dinh Hieu Nghia (Can Tho College of Tourism), there is a contradiction in training and recruitment. Supply has exceeded demand in terms of quantity. Tourism students have difficulty finding jobs. Tourism businesses in many localities lack skilled labor.
The development of high-quality tourism human resources in the Mekong Delta faces major challenges such as training quality not meeting demand, limitations in attracting and retaining talent and training local labor resources, not updating appropriate programs and teaching methods, while income levels and welfare regimes are not competitive...
Linking training facilities and businesses
Regarding solutions to improve the quality of tourism human resources, many experts said that it is necessary to build a long-term human resource development program; build an information system on tourism labor and employment; collect and update data; implement a two-way information system between enterprises and state management agencies. State management agencies, enterprises and schools need to closely coordinate in implementing the development of a legal corridor for training work...According to Master Dinh Hieu Nghia, integrating practice and internship at tourism businesses into the training process is very important. Businesses need to promote cooperation through training activities, aiming at in-depth training of personnel for each job position and each type of tourism from short-term to long-term scale...
Ms. Le Dinh Minh Thy, Director of Vietravel Can Tho branch, said: Strengthening close links between training institutions and businesses is the most important solution to solve the tourism human resource problem. Businesses can support in building practical training programs, creating conditions for students to access practical working skills through internship programs, career guidance and direct experience exchange with people working in the industry.
Strengthening training in soft skills, foreign languages and understanding of international tourism trends is also a factor that helps young graduates easily adapt and develop in an increasingly competitive tourism environment. Through close cooperation between businesses and training institutions, along with constantly updating training curricula, tourism human resources in the region will increasingly develop strongly and better meet the increasing demands of the market.
According to Dr. Tran Huu Hiep, Vice President of the Mekong Delta Tourism Association, human resources, tourism products and tourism spaces are the three pillars of sustainable tourism development in the region. Mekong Delta tourism is lacking professional human resources, unique tourism products and tourism space connectivity.
It is necessary to supply human resources according to market demand and tourism development orientation of the locality, two tourism clusters and the Mekong Delta region connecting with Ho Chi Minh City.
Focus on human resources serving the "tourism space" including routes, tourist destinations and providing specific tourism products of the region to avoid "phase difference" in training and use, supply-demand imbalance, and waste of resources.
The regional tourism industry should focus on training and fostering the direct workforce in the tourism industry, ensuring knowledge, skills, and expertise in each tourism specialty, foreign language proficiency, soft skills, and local knowledge, and have a program to support human resource training associated with building a regional tourism brand.
Besides, it is necessary to connect the tourism market, tourist needs with tourist destinations, routes, tours, forming "Clusters - tourism industry clusters"...
* Article and photos: Hoang Phan, People's Electronic Newspaper - nhandan.vn
Keywords: Mekong Delta,tourism human resources,
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